The Dangers of Riding Shotgun

[GenuineRisk]

Originally Posted by Danzig

air bags wouldn't affect where the seat belt was located due to a reclining seat.
should i add this new danger to the list of things to worry about? or should i just live my life and hope for the best- to die in my sleep rather than the million-odd other places i could breathe my last.....mmm, yeah. life is full of ifs, i'll continue to recline when the mood strikes.

One of the women mentioned in the article didn't die; she ended up a paraplegic. Is reclining in a car worth that to you? Not that most paraplegics I know don't live full, useful lives, but I doubt anyone would argue things are a lot harder for a person when he or she has limited mobility. Is that worth a nap to you?

Reading the article, I don't think it's a "worry" per se, I think it's something that should be a well-known risk (like not looking before you cross the street or eating food from a squishy can), but isn't because car companies don't have an interest in making it known that it's risky to recline a seat.

I agree; bad things happen in all kinds of ways, but in this case, for me, reclining a seat isn't worth the risk of unnecessary injury, now that I know the risk involved. Other things are.

BTW, Timm, Danzig's response to you was right; the injury isn't from lack of air bags; it's from the seat belt being moved from the optimum position for safety. Speaking of seat belts, I wish I could find the slate article on the myth of being "thrown clear" of a crash- that was truly horrifying, as it went into pretty graphic detail of what happens to a body thrown through a windshield or under the dashboard. Yick. Again, not a risk worth taking for me.